Epoxy flooring questions

€30 to €120 a m² for most jobs. A roller coat in one colour is €30 to €50 a m²; a full system with diamond-ground prep is €50 to €120 a m²; flake and metallic floors are €60 to €100 a m². See our price guide.

On sound, dry concrete, yes. It won't hold on a slab that's damp, dusty, oily or painted unless that's dealt with first, which is why the grinding and the moisture test matter more than the resin. A new slab needs time to dry out before it's coated.

At 20°C, about a day before you can walk on it, about 4 days for light use and about 7 days to a full cure. In a cold garage it's slower. See cure times.

Laid on a well-prepared slab, 10 to 20 years. The top coat in busy areas wears first, and it can be sanded and recoated without starting again.

A smooth gloss coat can be slippery when wet. An anti-slip grit in the top coat fixes that. See anti-slip flooring.

Epoxy is the hard, well-bonded base most floors start with. Polyurethane takes heat, steam and UV better; polyaspartic cures in hours. Many good floors use two of them. See resin flooring.

A home garage, yes, if you grind the slab properly and the concrete is dry. Paint-shop kits cost about €7 to €8 a m² for two coats, ex VAT. See garage floors, done for you or DIY.

One vetted epoxy flooring installer that covers your county. They ring within one working day, look at the floor, price it in writing and deal with you directly.

Epoxy is one kind of resin floor, the most common. Polyurethane and polyaspartic are the others. See resin flooring.

Not usually. Plain epoxy yellows in sunlight and frost works at the slab. Outdoor areas use other systems.

While it's laid and curing, a little. Most modern systems are solvent-free. Air the space and keep people out until it's cured.

Not as a rule. Timber moves and the coating cracks. Resin floors go on concrete or screed.

Filled cracks are hidden under the coating. A crack that's still moving will come back through.

The tiles and adhesive usually come up first. Some systems bridge sound tiles; the installer will say after a look.

Sweep the grit and mop with warm water and a little floor cleaner. Avoid harsh solvents and abrasive pads.

Cured food-grade systems are used in food premises. Near heat and steam, polyurethane cement is the usual choice. See kitchen floors.

Yes. See epoxy over underfloor heating.

Your request goes to one vetted epoxy flooring installer that covers your county. They ring you, usually within one working day, ask about the floor and arrange a look or a price.

Standard solvent-free epoxy primers require a concrete slab relative humidity below 75% RH when tested with an in-situ hygrometer sleeve or tramex meter. If the slab reads between 76% and 95% RH—common on older Irish garage slabs without a damp-proof membrane—a dedicated two-coat epoxy moisture vapour barrier primer must be applied first.

Single-pack acrylic and weak water-based floor paints sit on top of dusty concrete laitance with minimal mechanical bond. When warm car tyres park on the floor (hot-tyre pick-up), the plasticisers in the rubber soften the thin paint film and pull it clean off the slab as the tyre cools and contracts.

A 2-coat high-build roll-on applies primer plus two roller coats of 100%-solids epoxy to reach roughly 0.4–0.6 mm thickness, following the minor contours of the ground slab. A self-levelling epoxy or polyurethane system is poured from a notched trowel and spiked-rollered at 2.0–3.0 mm depth, filling micro-undulations to leave a glass-flat seamless finish.

Standard aromatic bisphenol-A epoxy resin will gradually amber when exposed to direct UV light through south-facing glazing or rooflights. In domestic kitchens, conservatories, and car showrooms, installers top the epoxy build with an aliphatic polyurethane or polyaspartic UV-stable sealer to lock in colour stability.

Yes, provided the screed has completed its full commissioning heat-up and cool-down cycle before diamond grinding begins. Flexible polyurethane comfort resin or crack-bridging epoxy primers are preferred over heated screeds, and the heating must be switched off 48 hours before installation and brought back up slowly 7 days after completion.

A smooth gloss epoxy floor has a low wet Pendulum Test Value and can feel slick under wet boots. By broadcasting PVA decorative flakes, fine aluminium oxide (80–120 mesh), or graded quartz aggregate into the wet build coat before sealing, the contractor tunes the surface texture from an easy-mop satin domestic finish up to a R11/PTV 45+ commercial grip.